Joint Communique: Australia and United States - Resources and Energy

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

November 15, 2012

Introduction

The Hon Martin Ferguson AM MP, Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism and the Hon Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State, met in Adelaide, South Australia on 15 November 2012.

They acknowledged that energy supply and security were issues of mutual interest that should be an ongoing item for bilateral discussion between the Australian Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism and the United States Department of State, and identified the first half of 2013 as a target date for the first round of such discussions.

Minister Ferguson and Secretary Clinton discussed the importance of global and regional governance architecture that supports reliability and security of competitively priced supply for resources and energy importers, and creates a framework for the participation of emerging economies. They concluded that such architecture was crucial to maintaining economic stability and growth in the Asia-Pacific region, and emphasized their common view that open and transparent markets are instrumental to the delivery of the investment needed to ensure resources and energy supply security.

Bilateral Investment

Australia’s ability to provide energy supply security to the region is assisting the growth of many countries, especially the major economies of China, India, the Republic of Korea and Japan, and Minister Ferguson and Secretary Clinton noted that the United States is the largest source of foreign investment capital in Australia, with cumulative investments estimated at over $550 billion in 2011, with Australia having over $400 billion invested in the United States. The parties noted that this robust and sophisticated bilateral investment relationship is particularly strong in the resources and energy sectors.

Clean Energy

Joint efforts such as the U.S.-Australia Solar Energy Collaboration (USASEC) initiative, which aims to increase the speed of development in solar energy technologies, and for which Prime Minister Gillard and Secretary Clinton announced funding support of $12 million in November 2011, confirm that both Australia and the United States recognize that global energy security and concerns about the climate are driving the uptake of clean and efficient renewable energy technologies.

Discussions between the Australian Department of Resources, Energy, and Tourism and the United States Department of State in 2013 will also focus on strengthening our commitment to open and transparent energy and resource markets in multi-national fora such as the G20, IEA, WTO, APEC, East Asia Summit and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and through initiatives such as the multi-stakeholder Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which encourages country and company reporting on transactions between companies and government for extracting natural resources.

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